Tuesday, August 31, 2010

subjective vs. objective claims

Today while I was sitting in bed watching television my roommate decided to open a bag of Tootsie Roll pops. She only likes the chocolate flavored ones so when she noticed there was only one chocolate one in the bag she exclaimed, “The Tootsie Roll Company is stingy! They fill the bag with all the other flavors except chocolate.” This claim is subjective because if my roommate’s favorite tootsie pop had been raspberry rather than chocolate she would have been more satisfied with the assortment in this bag since the majority of the lollipops were raspberry flavored.


A friend of mine was looking for a pair scissors to cut out an article in a magazine for a class project. When she came to me looking to borrow scissors I told her that it was no problem because I had just purchased a two pack (one large and one small) the day before. However when I went to retrieve the smaller scissor for her I only saw the larger pair. I said, “I am sorry but I am going to have to give you the larger pair since I cannot find my smaller pair.” This claim is objective because it is a fact that I purchased two pairs of scissors the day before and that when I went to find the small pair I could not locate them. If I had concluded that someone stole my smaller pair of scissors this claim would have become subjective since I actually had no idea if the scissors were stolen or misplaced and made a decision based on personal feelings.

1 comment:

  1. Waddup MichSim! I liked your example of an objective claim because it is not a typical example. I actually had trouble thinking of one at first and I also noticed that a lot of examples were simple facts that are easy to provide as objective, but yours was more of a personal situation. I even had to look at it twice before it struck me as an objective claim. You did a good job as well when you provided an alternate situation where the claim would have become subjective. Saying someone stole your scissors is subjective because there is no proof. However, if you had seen them steal them, or they admitted they stole them, then it would change. So good job! Keep up the zesty posts ;P
    -Tell 'Em

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